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I could have missed this!!

When I was teaching 3rd grade, my students would SAVE their loose teeth for me to pull.  I would put on a rubber glove, and they would sit on a stool in front of the class, and I would pull their little bitty loose teeth.  If I had missed the FIRST Porter loose tooth while in China???...well....I just might have really lost it for good!(OK...So that might be a little tear coming out of his left eye. I didn't prepare him that it would bleed.  Rookie mistake! 3rd graders know there is blood involved. Oops!)

How cute are these pumpkin pies in the cabinets?

Ahhhh....

I cannot tell you what this picture does to me.  (THANK YOU to my sweet friend, Erica, who came to photograph us at the airport!  emfimages.com  ) To finally be home with the rest of the kids, all in one piece, was truly a dream come true.  Just thinking about the airport moment of seeing them once again brought tears to my eyes for days after. Yes, those are homemade "Welcome Home, Micah!' t-shirts the kids are wearing - thanks to some AWESOME babysitters!

Micah is adjusting beautifully!  She is sleeping by herself in her crib through the night without a peep.  Let me tell you, if I can have a full night sleep, I feel like I can conquer the world (or 4 young toddlers).  She is loving playing with her brothers more and more, and we are seeing more of her true personality come out.  She is really pretty darling.  It is sort of like an onion where we are peeling back the layers as she begins to feel more at home.  And her hair is already getting longer!  I know that really doesn't matter, but I just CAN'T WAIT to get some Asian pigtails going!

Sure enough, Micah is beginning to feel more and more "like ours." If I am not around, she LOVES being with her daddy, but she can still give him a run for his money if I am in the room, too.  Thankfully, I married a patient man, and he treasures the time with her when they are alone.

We are a family of 6 now, and I certainly feel the weight of that.  However, the Lord has been gracious to give us joy in the journey and energy when we are exhausted.  Thank you for caring about us and joining us on our journey to Micah! 

 

 

 

We made it home!

All I can say is that you all MUST have been praying!  The flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo was a little rough, but the big flight from Tokyo to DFW was GREAT!  We had an extra seat on our row so she had her own spot and she slept probably 8 hours! Now, I paid for it last night when she was up most of the night wanting to get out of bed, but I would rather duke it out at home than on an airplane ANY DAY!

The airport moment with our boys was so wonderful! It was like a dream when I finally laid eyes on them.  I was so excited to see them I could not even contain myself.  They are so sweet an patient with Micah.  She loves having playmates already!

We are home.  All the P's are in the pod, and we are praying for God's gracious gifts of patience and peace every day.  I will post more pictures when I have them.  For now, I just can't thank you all enough for caring and praying for our journey to Micah.  She is finally HOME! 

Heading home!

Ok. So maybe I spoke a little too fast about Micah being a daddy's girl.  She still prefers being held by me, having me push her stroller, and me more or less being at her beckon call.  She hasn't made a habit of running to her daddy with her arms open yet.  However, Reid STILL doesn't get to take a sleeping pill for the plane ride home!

I cannot overstate the progress this little girl has made in less than 2 weeks.  She has gone from being sad and grumpy almost all of the time to being pretty happy and contented most of the time.  We know how to get her to smile and laugh, and she sleeps like an absolute champ! (A HUGE answer to prayer!) She has gone from having a hard time being in the same room with Reid to sitting on his lap readily and even asking to be held by him from time to time. She says "please" when she wants something, and she lets me leave the room for more than a minute without totally losing it. She doesn't cry just out of sadness anymore.  When Micah does cry, it is usually because we have said "no" to something or because we are not jumping high enough when she says jump.  Most of it is pretty basic stuff that ANY 19 month-old needs to work through.

We have a HUGE day of travel beginning 5 a.m. China time. That is 4 p.m. your time on Wednesday.  We will get home around 4 p.m. on Thursday.  So, if you read this blog and think of us, please pray that we are sane somewhere midair and that the other passengers around us are being patient :)  We can't wait to be stateside with America's newest citizen!  Love you all! 

Last night sleep in China! Notice she STILL likes to sleep with a terry cloth towel.

She did it!

Woke up this morning. Took Micah to see her daddy. She toddled over to him with arms up and sat on his lap and smiled about it. I am seriously excited! Thrilled actually! I would say she is officially daddy's little girl! This is one mom who is hopeful that she won't have to hold a wiggly toddler all the way from China to Dallas on her lap.  We will definitely be working in some additional daddy bonding time en route! And to think... he was hoping to take a sleeping pill and check out for the flight.  Not so fast, Mr. Porter...Not so fast!

We can see the sky!

We made it to Guangzhou with out incident.  Thankfully, we had an empty seat next to us on the plane, so Micah could roll around and play.  She took the flight like a champ! Still not looking forward to 13 hours on a plan to come home, though... But at least HOME is on the other side of that flight. YIPPEEE! 

Guangzhou is a huge improvement from Jinan.  First of all, we can see the sky, sun, and clouds.  I don't think I realized how oppressive the pollution really was until we saw blue skies. The Garden Hotel is beautiful and the city feels pretty western.  We have all sorts of restaurants within walking distance, and today we went to the zoo. 

Micah has ups and downs, but she is more consistently up for sure. She still wants me to hold and play with her the lion's share of the time, but sometimes she will let Reid pick her up without a battle.  If she does battle, she usually calms down after about 30 seconds.  We try not to push her limits or exasperate her, but sometimes, mom just needs a break.  Like yesterday. 

We were at the medical examiner's office for 2 hours with 100+ other adoptive families all crammed in a noisy space with no AC.  Micah was having a meltdown where she didn't want up or down and there was nothing I could do to make her (or myself) happy! Of course (I felt like) everyone was staring at me. Thankfully, this was an adoption friendly crowd, so I wasn't overly embarrassed.  At lunch after that, she had another full on melt down in an all Chinese crowd and they ALL WERE staring at us.  The Chinese people don't let their kids melt down. Because of the one child policy, they do everything they can to make their children happy. If she starts screaming because we won't let her play with a knife or throw food on the floor, the Chinese people think we have something seriously wrong going on at our table. Strangers will even come up and say, "Whass wong wit da baby?"  It is pretty stressful parenting under a microscope. Micah is still suffering a pretty hefty sense of loss, so she is going to be more sensitive, whiny, and tearful than the average child.  We are not beating her, pinching her, or purposefully making her sad. Try explaining that in Chinese!

Today started out pretty rough. Our guide was not picking us up until 10 to leave for the zoo, and Micah did not want to be in the room any more.  She would pull my arm toward the door and scream and cry.  We told her we loved her, gave her some books and toys, but this did not fly. All she wanted to do was sit on the bed and scream at us.  So, we just let her have at it while we just sat in the room with her.

After a while, Reid sat the screaming child next to him (which is never her favorite thing) and started reading some of the books that we brought her. After about 10 minutes, she finally calmed down and started listening to the stories and mimicking animal noises Reid was making. The rest of the day so far has been WONDERFUL! She let Reid hold her tons at the zoo and never fussed when he pushed her stroller. We found a Mexican food restaurant for lunch and made it through without one screeching whine. When we got home, Micah went down for a nap without a battle.  It almost felt like what we would think of as a "normal" day!  How is that for a sabbath blessing!? Thank you guys for caring for us and praying for us.  It really is getting better and better everyday.  I know she sounds like a handful, and she is.  But she is also a delight to be around.  She can be completely adorable! Her little high-pitched raspy voice is so cute and when she wrinkles up her little nose and scrunches her eyes to smile, it makes your heart melt.  She is learning a lot and trying very hard to hop on the Porter program, bless her little heart.  We can't wait for you to meet her!

Micah and Mom had had enough of the doctor's office!

Truly happy in Daddy's arms!

Despite all the "Do not feed animals" signs, Chinese people throw human food to the animals all the time.

I didn't expect to be intimidated by these guys.  They are really cute, but they are definitely still bears

Our FIRST picture with everyone smiling

Micah's first quesadilla